Sickness absence

Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request ref: 01/FIN/25/003923/N

Version Date: 03/12/2025

The HR Workforce Planning Department has provided the following information which has been taken from the Force’s quarterly sickness reporting containing the data as at the last day of the relevant quarter as it was recorded on the system at those times.

Please note:

• ‘short term’ refers to periods of sickness of seven days or less whilst ‘long term’ refers to periods of sickness of more than seven days.
• Staff and officers on External Secondment or on an Extended Leave Break have been excluded from the data.
• Working days lost may not be completely accurate: any period of sickness lasting longer than 5 calendar days has had a 5/7ths formula added to determine working days lost as accurately as possible (e.g. if the sickness period lasted 6 calendar days, 6 x 5/7ths = 4.29 working days lost). This is done to account for any potential weekends occurring within the sickness period, due to current system reporting limitations. This might not be 100% accurate as the data also does not take into account part time workers, flexible working patterns, etc. but it is how we are currently approaching our sickness data for working days lost for our reporting. Please be aware that this only applies to the Staff figures as this approach was not adopted for Officers until 2019.
• There has been an increase in establishment between the two time periods which would have an impact on the increased sickness absences.

1. Please supply details of time off taken by Dorset Police officers on short term and long term 'Sick' by numbers or percentage from 1st January to 31st December 2018.

2. . Please supply details of time off taken by Dorset Police support Staff on short term and long term 'Sick' by numbers or percentage from 1st January to 31st December 2024.

3. Please stipulate how many of those officers were on 'Long term' sick leave, ie Requiring a Doctors certification, or 'Short term' self certification (under 7 days).

4. The average amount of days or hours lost broken down into A. Short term self certificating and B. Long term, certified by a doctor.